Burg Linzenberg

The castle occupied a narrow rock spur and was organized in two linked enclosures, an outer bailey with a roughly horseshoe shape of about seven hundred square metres and a slightly smaller inner bailey set a little to the northwest. The inner enclosure lay on the spur’s narrowest part and was defended by a substantial stone shield wall that protected the approach from the rock neck. Stonework at the northwest end of that wall survives as a fragment.

Defensive earthworks remain readable in the ground plan. A wide neck ditch facing southwest toward the high plateau measures between eight and twelve metres across and separated the site from the surrounding rock, while a second ditch at the northern tip cuts through the spur and further defined the castle’s defensive layout. In the outer bailey there are vestiges of what was once a polygonal curtain wall, preserved only in short stretches, and a flattened rock tongue at the eastern brink marks an exposed platform that once held a building.

On the highest point of the rock, on the southeastern flank, stands the footprint of a trapezoidal structure interpreted as the residential tower. Its measured length is 12.5 metres, with the width varying from about 7.10 metres along the side facing the shield wall to roughly 4.60 metres at the opposite side. The northwest wall retains core masonry with small facing stones, while the southeast corner is marked by a single limestone block measuring approximately 65 by 40 by 42 centimetres. At the eastern corner there is a short remnant of wall built of small squared blocks set in regular courses, and three isolated ashlar blocks lie near the building’s center. Scattered depressions and solitary stone blocks across the site are taken as traces of additional former buildings.

The spur’s northeastern tip is a levelled rock step that was probably built upon in the castle period. From that point clear lines of sight extend to the twin Falkenstein ruin, the Schaufelsen and its Schauenburg ruins, the Neidinger Heidenschloss rock formation, and the Burgstall Auchtbühl. Construction employed small squared stone blocks and larger limestone blocks, and today the location exists chiefly as wall and masonry remnants on the rock outcrop.